


Leave Me No Recourse

by Nokomis



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel and Tim work an assignment together. (Spoilers through 4x03)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Me No Recourse

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for a prompt on the porn battle, but it turned into a character piece that's somewhat lacking in actual porn. Title from Murder By Death. Huge thanks to Lielabell for glancing over this.

When a line comes in on a pair of art thieves who have managed to evade capture for ten years, Art gives them the spiel about how he isn’t taking any chances, how neither of them are going to fuck it up, how he’s sending Raylan way out to Paducah to chase down a carjacker so they have zero excuses about _fucking things up_.

Tim sits there, arms crossed and looking bored, while Rachel tries not to squirm like a kid in the principal’s office, thinking of her own recent reprimand. 

“We were pretty sure that these two had settled in the south of France or somewhere nice and sunny like that, given how much they made off their heist, but lo and behold, we got a call come in from the lady’s cousin, says her sister made a couple visits to Louisville. We think they’re holed up in Indian Hills, living out the white picket fence dream.”

“And?” Tim says. Rachel doesn’t look over to see if he’s raising an eyebrow, it’s a given.

“And I want the two of you to go up there undercover. Get a visual, feel it out, see if you can get some prints so we can make a confirmation.”

“Undercover,” Rachel repeats. 

“What, you want for Rachel to say I’m her half-wit brother?” Tim drawls.

“If you want,” Art says, pushing an folder across the table. “Or go the simplest route and say you’re newlyweds. Whichever way you think will get me my art thieves.”

*

The drive is quiet. Tim leans back in his seat, deceptively casual, but never stops watching the world as it passes by. Every car, every house, every overpass gets inspected. Rachel suspects that he only let her drive because that frees up both his hands in case he has to draw.

Raylan would have slept the whole way, hat tipped down over his face while he pretended like he hadn’t been up causing trouble for himself half the night. Art would have kept up an endless stream of conversation, stories meant to teach her how to do her job better, trying to mold her into the leader he wants her to be. But Tim just warily watches the world, and doesn’t complain when she turns on the radio.

*

 

The thieves are calling themselves Norma and John Klimt, and Rachel’s already itching to put them in cuffs, even as she shakes their hands. She smiles warmly as Tim introduces them as Vincent and Jules, and, when he drapes his arm over her shoulders, she uses the opportunity to hit him in the back.

Later, over dinner in the government-funded hotel room that’s bigger than the apartment that Rachel’s renting, she throws a napkin at Tim. “Really? Vincent and Jules?”

“They’re calling themselves Klimt,” Tim shrugs. “If anything, they’d respect a good reference.”

“Fair enough, but no more chances,” Rachel says, never mind that Tim’s the most thorough person in their office. “All we have to do is get some prints and then make the arrest.”

Tim grabs the carton of dumplings and finishes them off, not offering her any. “Too bad Art didn’t just send Raylan. He could have just charmed the lady thief and gotten her prints off his belt buckle.”

Rachel snorts. “More like he’d end up shooting them, and we’d all have to sit through another round of videos on probable cause.”

“He gets all the fun.” Rachel can’t tell if Tim is joking or not.

When Rachel reaches for her beer, her ring clinks against the glass, and she’s started at just how quickly she got used to its absence.

*

The supposed Klimts have fully integrated into their community, which makes finding them simple. The next morning Rachel returns to the room after breakfast to find Tim getting ready for the a fundraiser brunch that Norma Klimt is organizing.

Tim’s got on a blazer to hide his gun, and Rachel greets him with, “Lookin’ snazzy, Gutterson.”

“I do my best,” Tim says, flicking at one of his lapels. “You ready for some petty theft?”

“It’s not theft if we’re requisitioning it,” she replies. “We get the prints, we get a positive ID, and we finally get to make an arrest.”

“It’s a lot more fun when we get to go in guns blazing,” Tim says. “I’m not overly fond of this sneaky undercover shit.”

“You just hate that you’re not as good at it as I am.” Rachel strides down the hall, and doesn’t look back to see his response.

*

The brunch is painfully dull. They unfortunately arrive before the Klimts do, and Rachel gets to stand around watching Tim try to pretend to be a grown-up in the real world. It’s well worth the price of admission, if only to see stranger’s reactions to Tim’s version of small talk.

“Be sure not to give the Klimts the ole dead eye that you have going on there,” Rachel tells Tim when she sees their marks finally enter the room. “It’s suspicious.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tim said, taking a sip out of his glass. His orange juice is as woefully vodka-free as her own, which is making the brunch even less bearable than it would have been. Practically everyone else in the room is getting rapidly drunk, and while it’ll make their job easier if no one is sober enough to notice them stealing the things that the Klimts touch, Rachel is just the teeniest bit jealous.

But she’s on the job, and she’s good at it, and she’s not going to do anything to screw it up. And Tim takes his work just as seriously, so he doesn’t even look tempted by the alcohol that’s flowing freely before noon.

“Uh-huh,” Rachel pivots enough that she can see both Klimts. “You gonna go for it, or should I?”

“I’ve got this,” Tim offers and heads straight for the suspects. Rachel watches while he chats with them, and when he leaves, she notices that he’s taken the husband’s glass instead of his own, napkin carefully wrapped around it. 

“Good work,” Rachel hisses. This stuff is far from what they normally do, and she thinks that she prefers strong-arming her way into a situation and demanding the prints.

She’s about to say something to that effect when an older gentleman in a bowtie approaches them and starts quizzing them on what they think of the neighborhood. She gets into the swing of the conversation, telling him how charming it is, when Tim leans in and presses a kiss on her cheek. She keeps her face schooled, trying to appear like this was an everyday occurrence, as Tim whispers, “On the left. Second glass.”

When he pulls away, she smiles and excuses herself. She casually picks up the glass that he indicated as she goes, and as soon as she’s out of Norma’s line of vision, dumps the leftover screwdriver into a plant and wraps the cup in a napkin. She tucks it into her purse.

She can still feel the ghost of Tim’s mouth on her cheek, which… is a problem.

 

*

There’s nothing to do but wait once they get the prints sent in. They follow the Klimts to their neighborhood, which is a gated community that they would draw too much suspicion in if they parked. So Tim finds a spot in a parking lot of a park across the street from the entrance, which they’ve double-checked and are positive is the only way in and out of the neighborhood, and they settle in to pass the time.

Tim settles back in his seat, perfectly at ease in stakeout mode, but Rachel keeps flipping through the paperwork, making sure everything’s in order for when they get to make the arrest, and checking her phone every few minutes, in case she somehow misses the call.

“Relax,” Tim finally says, after she’s checked for the tenth time. “We’ve got this one in the bag.”

“Nothing’s ever in the bag until it’s actually _in the bag_ ,” Rachel says. She’s seen too many things go downhill fast, and she really wants this arrest on her record. She knows Art’s watching her carefully, knows that birthday number 57 is approaching for him, and he hasn’t exactly been subtle about her being the likeliest candidate in-office.

She _should_ want the promotion. She’d be good at it. But she _likes_ going out in the field, likes talking to people and using her hard-won knowledge to _help_ in a way that’s more visceral than filling out paperwork and wrangling cowboy marshals.

She wonders, sometimes, if _she_ could be a cowboy marshal too. Raylan’s hat might not have fit, but she could forge her own path. She cuts her eyes over to Tim, who is still watching the cars go by, clearly mentally cataloging them all.

Tim mostly follows the rules, is remarkably good at the job, but he’s not the one with the pressure on his shoulders. He’s too war-scarred for that. But he does everything with self-deprecation and a sardonic smile, and he never acts like he has to prove himself. Not like her.

“You gonna rattle out of your skin?” Tim doesn’t look away from the entrance to the neighborhood.

“Hope not,” Rachel says. She closes the file that she’s been flipping through; she’s already got everything memorized.

Tim actually turns and gives her a measuring stare that feels like it strips her bare. “This about Joe?”

“What? No,” Rachel says. She pauses. “Maybe. Leaving him, it kind of made me think about everything.”

“Your job?” Tim’s startlingly observative about everything, Rachel should remember that.

She sighs. “You heard about Art kicking that guy out, the one interested in his job?”

“I never forget something that ends with Pappy’s,” Tim drawls. 

“Do you think I could do his job?” It’s the first time Rachel’s actually said it out loud.

“Eventually.” Tim glances back, makes sure the fugitives haven’t left their neighborhood, then returns his attention to her. “I think you’re worried about not getting to sow some wild oats before you end up in charge of everyone.”

“Is it that obvious?” 

“You got a reprimand,” Tim says. “It was like seeing the valedictorian in detention.”

“You’re an asshole,” Rachel says, though she can’t deny that he’s right. 

He grins at her, wide and bright. “You probably just need to get some.”

“You offerin’?” she shoots back. He hesitates, almost like he’s considering it, eyes flickering down so fast that it takes her a second to realize that he actually _thought_ about it.

“In your dreams, sweetheart,” he says, voice as dry as ever, as a somewhat charged silence falls over the car.

*

The call finally comes an hour later, when Rachel’s gone back to flipping through the case file fruitlessly while Tim eats the last of his lunch. Her eyes are drawn over to him every time he licks something off his fingertip, and she’s starting to think that maybe sowing some wild oats might be a good plan.

It’s a relief that her phone finally rings then with news that they’re set to go arrest the fugitives. 

“It’s them,” she announces as she hangs up, even though Tim could clearly hear every word she’d just said on the phone. “Let’s go get ‘em.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tim immediately pulls out of their parking spot, ditching the remains of his lunch, as they enter the gated community with the code they’d already requested from the property manager. 

The arrest goes smoothly; no one gets shot and there’s a minimal amount of running involved. The wife looks at Rachel like she betrayed her somehow, but Rachel doesn’t let it get to her. 

The paperwork takes ages, and afterwards, Tim drives them back to the hotel. Rachel’s still got the itch to take someone down, for all that they already made the arrest. It wasn’t… it was too safe. Everything went perfectly by the books, and for the first time in her career Rachel wishes that something had gone wrong, somehow.

It’s not that she has an itchy trigger finger, but it feels like there’s still something left to do. She follows Tim into the elevator, and when the doors ding shut, he says, “Bit of a letdown, wasn’t it?”

“It was just so amicable,” Rachel sighs. “It’s not that I want our fugitives running and shooting, it’s just… They just let us put on the cuffs and went. After building that whole suburban-fantasy life.”

“Maybe it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.” Tim leans against the wall.

Rachel thinks of the look on the woman’s face, and wonders. “Maybe.”

“Did you like it?”

“The arrest?” Rachel raises an eyebrow at him.

Tim shakes his head. “The suburban-fantasy life.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Rachel shrugs. “Every time I think I’m happy, it turns out that it’s just a front for what’s really happening.” She knows Tim will remember the story about her childhood, but doesn’t admit that this last time, it was her own front that caused the happiness to crumble. She’s tired of trying to be perfect, trying to make up for things that don’t matter.

“I don’t think it’s for me, personally,” Tim says. The elevator dinged as it reached their floor, and he continues as they head down the hall, shoulders stiff. “Too many people there I’d be tempted to shoot.”

Rachel laughs, even though she knows he’s not entirely joking. They’re almost to the room, and she’s made a sudden decision, something that’ll hopefully cure the frustrated restlessness she’s feeling.

“Tim,” she says, and he stops. Turns towards her, and she thinks she actually surprises him when she steps in and kisses him. He’s stiff and still at first, like he’s debating whether it’s a good idea, but Rachel doesn’t back off. She knows there are a thousand repercussions that she should be considering – they _work_ together, Art’s considering her to be his _boss_ one day – but for once she’s not going to worry about the future.

And then Tim seems to make his own choice, and he’s kissing her back, hard and fierce as she assumed he would, because he trusts that she’s not in need of delicate handling. 

He _trusts_ her, that’s the important thing. Trusts her as backup, trusts her to know that she’s making the right choice. He doesn’t question her, just mumbles, “Glad you weren’t being hypothetical, earlier,” against her mouth.

“In your dreams, sweetheart,” she quotes back at him, and he laughs as he pushes her up against the hotel room door. She pulls the keycard out of his back pocket, reaching over to slide it awkwardly without breaking the embrace. 

Rachel Brooks isn’t denying herself the present hoping for a better future anymore, and as the door swings shut behind them, she feels lighter than she has in years.


End file.
